"Chet" (Yates)/Chapter 13
"I HAD an awfully good time in Columbus. The very first day, Mabelle took me up through the ravine,—the one into which their street runs and gets lost, and then finds itself again at the upper end. It is the loveliest, wildest place, with great trees and a tangle of bushes and undergrowth, and perfectly alive with birds and squirrels; and golden-rod and purple asters were everywhere. Mabelle's white rabbit, Son Riley, and her cat, Buzzer, went along, and chased each other through the long grass and weeds, and had the finest time ever. There were a lot of great boulders all along the bottom of the ravine, and I got pretty much interested when Mabelle told me how some of them were meteors, and some glacial stones, and pointed out which was which. We got back just in time for lunch, and climbed the terraces to their house. You see, when they cut the street through the bottom of the ravine, they put the houses up on the top of the bank, and then terraced the front yards; but the vacant lots are just like the banks of the ravine, with trees and boulders, exactly as they have been for hundreds of years,—and that's how Mabelle got a joke on me the next morning. We were up early, and while we were waiting for breakfast, she and I went out and sat on the side fence, in our Jap kimonos, and listened to the birds and looked off down the hill, with Son Riley standing up tall, and nibbling at our toes.
"Presently I saw a big gray boulder, about a hundred feet down the hill. 'Look,' I said, pointing at it, 'Is that a meteor?'
"'No, Elizabeth,' said Mabelle, sweetly, 'that isn't a meteor, that's a cow!'
"And then she shrieked so loud that the cow got up and looked at us. You see, it was a black and gray speckled cow, and she was lying down, with her head around to one side, where it didn't show, so that she looked exactly like a great gray rock;—and now they all say that I will never make either a farmer or an astronomer, if I can't tell a cow froma meteor. Mr. Kirby took me out after breakfast, and went to a lot of trouble to explain to me the difference; and pointed out that meteors didn't have horns, nor tassels on their tails, and made her open her mouth and explained that meteors weren't lacking in front teeth in their upper jaws, and didn't chew cud;—until I wished that a genuine meteor would come along and show him how it was different from a cow.
"But I am not going to tell you about my visit in Columbus, or anywhere else, until I get home; and the rest of this letter is going to be a wild and weird tale entitled, 'The Case of the New Type-writer.' Doesn't that sound legal, or criminal, or something?
"The machine reached Columbus all right. It came packed in a wooden box, and the case came the next day, packed in another; and Father got into town the same day. He stayed only half of the week, and then went on, and said for me to start for Washington on Wednesday, and he would get there about Saturday night.
"I felt pretty fine when I clamped the machine into the case and locked it, and reminded myself that there wasn't another thing to do until I unlocked it in the hotel in Washington. I sent it to the station with my trunk; and then, when I went down to take my train, at about nine o'clock that night, I went into the baggage room to check them. The baggage master set the case up onto the counter.
"'Oh, I want to check that, too,' I said.
"'Can't check that, lady,' said the baggage master, pleasantly.
"'Why not?' I asked.
"'Against orders.'
"'But that's what it's for!' I gasped. 'It's made for that.'
"'Can't help it, lady. We ain't allowed to check 'em. Too much risk.'
"'Then check it at her risk,' said Mr. Kirby. He and Mabelle were with me.
"'Can't do it. Against orders.'
"'But what shall I do?' I cried. 'My train goes in ten minutes.'
'The baggage master looked sympathetic. 'I'll send a porter down to the car with it,' he said.
"That helped some; for I could barely lift the thing, by taking both hands and my knees,—but I couldn't carry it more than three steps at a time that way.
"I said good-bye to Mr. Kirby and Mabelle at the gate, and followed the porter and the type-writer case along the platform and down the stairs to the train. The porter set it between the seats in my section, and I climbed over it and sat down. You've no idea how big a type-writer case is until you come to divide up small quarters with it. I tried to shove it under the seat; but it was too high both ways, so I let it be. I didn't particularly mind climbing over it, anyway.
"The train started up, and pretty soon the Pullman conductor came through. When he caught sight of the case, he stopped short and glared. 'You can't have that in here,' he said.
"I just looked at him. There didn't seem to be anything to say, and so I didn't say it.
"'I said you couldn't have that in here,' he remarked again.
"'Well, wh-where can I have it?' I asked, meekly.
"'It ought to be in the baggage car. Why didn't you have it checked?'
"'They wouldn't check it.'
"'Huh? Why wouldn't they?'
"'Said it was against orders.'
"'Well, you can't have it in here,' he said, and walked on.
"I sat and stared at the case, and the nice marking, 'Fragile, WITH CARE,' and sighed. I wished that the 'WITH CARE' wasn't in capitals,—it was so suggestive,—I'd never had so much care on my hands before in all my life. And it was such a perfectly well-behaved case too;—it wasn't doing a thing.
"By and by the porter came in and began making up the berths, and I held my breath, hoping he'd get to me before the conductor came back, but he didn't, and in a few minutes, the blue uniform came down the car and stopped at my seat. 'I told you you couldn't have that in here,' he said.
"I suppose he had expected me to eat it while he was gone; but I hadn't. 'I'm—I'm sorry,' I said, weakly.
"'It's too big," he said, shoving his toe against it.
"'It doesn't run over into the aisle any,' I said.
"'Well, but suppose some one else takes that other seat,—what you going to do then? What'll they do with their feet?'
"I had to admit that it was a poor outlook for their feet, and that mine had cramps in them already.
"He seemed glad of that.
"'Well,' he said, 'we can't have it in here,'—and then he stood and waited.
"I was just beginning to get real bothered, when suddenly the funny side of it struck me, and I could feel the corners of my mouth going up.
I tried to draw them down. "'Now, see here,' I said, 'suppose you were me, and this was your type-writer, what would you do with it, right now?'
"He moistened his lips several times. 'H-m,' he said, 'Well, I—I guess I'd have to carry it on the roof.'
"I tried to look relieved. 'How can I get up there?' I said, 'and will I have to stay with it, and hold it on?'
He laughed then, and so did I; and then he said that if the other berth wasn't taken, the case could stay where it was; so I festooned myself around it and waited until we should have passed some place, I can't remember what, to see if any one had the berth.
"Some one had. A decided-looking man and his wife came in and compared the number of the seat with their tickets,—and looked at the type-writer case. The conductor wasn't in sight, so I asked them if they wouldn't as lief sit down in the seat across the aisle, because the porter was just coming to me. The woman was nice about it and the man did it, and I gave the porter a quarter and told him to hurry and make up the berth. You see, I wanted to get the type-writer into it before the conductor got back.
"I thought that I had the lower berth, but my ticket called for the upper one; and when the porter said he'd ask the conductor about it, I told him to never mind, that I didn't care; if he could only get the case up there. He said he could do that all right, and he did, and I climbed up after it, and felt safe.
"He put it at the foot of the berth, and every once in a while, when I first went to bed, I would put my foot down, to see if it was there and behaving as it should; and then I went to sleep, and when I wakened up and put out my foot, the thing seemed farther away, and I began to be afraid that it was going to tumble off. I couldn't go to sleep for thinking of it, and so by and by I crawled down there and got hold of the handle and wrestled the thing up close beside me, where I could keep my hand on it. But that didn't help much; for every time that the train lurched, or went around a bend, it jiggled so that I was absolutely sure that it would slide off. And then I had an idea,—a perfectly good one. I took the blanket and tied one corner of it to some sort of a knob, or hook or something, in the back of the berth, and the other corner through the handle of the case. It left some slack, because the blanket was too thick to draw far through the handle; but I had it tied tight, and knew it couldn't get away, so I crawled under the rope of blanket, and went to sleep.
"I was just explaining to Mabelle that the bright, shiny cow that we could see up in the sky, jumping over the moon, was really a meteor, and had teeth in both jaws, because I could see them, when suddenly it stumbled and came keeling over and over, right down toward us, and then it landed on my breast with a thud, and held me down, crushing me so I couldn't breathe,—and my arms were under it, too, so I couldn't struggle;—and then I knew I was awake, and there must be a wreck, and I was under the timbers; and I kept my eyes shut for just a second longer, and then I opened them and saw, by the dim light, that there wasn't any wreck. But the weight was still on my chest, and my arms were pinioned, and the man in the berth below was asking questions of his wife. I couldn't hear what he said, but I could tell that it was questions,—and that he seemed to think it was her fault.
"I knew what was the matter, now;—that my type-writer had tumbled off, and was holding me down, with the blanket stretched across me. I could breathe fairly, up high, when I got used to it, but I couldn't move a thing except my feet. I lay still and tried to decide what to do. The man kept on asking questions, and then he decided to find out what was the trouble. The road was pretty rough along there, and I guess he sat up, but couldn't see what was the matter; for the case was hanging outside of the little curtain that drops from the bottom of the upper berth. I could just about tell what was going on, by the sound. He went to put his head out, to see what was doing, and just then the train went around a curve, and the case must have swung in real hard, exactly at the wrong time. It was a little higher up than he was expecting to look for anything, and I guess it caught him just about on the crown of his head,—and it weighs more than fifty pounds,—and was swinging on the end of a blanket! Of course I don't know exactly what happened, but I think it knocked him up against the window, from the sound,—though he may have gone over there on purpose. Anyway, his voice came from over on that side awfully quick,—and he sounded as if he had a notion to throw his wife off the train.
"He hadn't found out what was the matter, and I think that he went at it kind of easy the next time; and he'd just got hold of the thing with both hands and was feeling to find out what it was, when the train swung the other way and he went out into the aisle,—all but his feet.
"Then he began to talk to his wife some more. I guess she must have held his feet, or done something like that, for she certainly was to blame that time, and he wasn't going to stand for it.
"I was giggling until I ached all over, and it's hard to giggle, when you've only about a quarter of an inch of breathing space to do it in. Pretty quick he tackled the thing all over again, and followed the lead of the blanket, up to my berth.
"'What's the matter up there?' he called.
"I tried to make my voice sound meek. 'My type-writer got away,' I said.
"'Well, why don't you haul it up?' he asked.
"'I can't,—I'm under it,' I said.
"'Huh?' he asked.
"'The blanket's holding me down,' I said.
"'Are you hurt?' called his wife, and I heard her scrambling out.
"I said 'no,' as her head appeared above the edge of the berth. 'I just can't move, that's all.'
"So the two of them hoisted the machine until I could crawl out from under the blanket; and then, among us, we managed to get it back up again, the man sputtering all the time. He seemed to think that his wife's education, along the line of hoisting type-writers, had been neglected. When we had gotten it up, I hauled it over to the back of the berth and sat and leaned against it for the rest of the night. I wasn't taking any more chances. It makes as good a chair-back as it does a type-writer case, anyway!
"I dressed early, and when we got to Washington I tipped the porter to carry the case to the platform, and then got a station porter to take it to the checking-desk, and left it there. Then I took a car to the family hotel that Father had told me to go to. Father said he wanted me to learn to find places, instead of taking a cab everywhere. I didn't order my luggage sent, because I wasn't sure whether they could put me up at that hotel, and if not, I'd have to try another.
"During the morning I called up a friend of Father's, as I had promised to, and in the evening he came over, and said he would take me down to see the Congressional Library, and we could attend to the luggage at the same time.
"We went to the station first, and at the baggage room, I handed in my checks and gave the man the address, and told him that the type-writer was at the checking-desk.
"He shoved the check back to me. 'We can't take that up, Miss,' he said.
"I was glad he called me 'Miss.' In Columbus they had called me 'lady.'
"'It's in a sole-leather travelling-case,' I said, as if that settled the question.
"'Can't help it, Miss,' which of course he couldn't.
"'And you can't deliver it?'
"'No, Miss.'
"'Why not?'
"'Against orders.'
"'But why?'
"'Well,—a trunk might fall on it, you know.'
"We turned away, and went to the checking-desk. There was a boy there, and I told him about it. 'What shall I do?' I asked.
"'I'd take it up myself, if I lived on that side of the city,' he said; '—but I don't.'
"I thanked him.
"'You might get a telegraph messenger,' he suggested.
"'But it's so big,' I groaned, '—and they're always so little.'
"'Why don't you go and look 'em over and pick out the biggest boy on the bench?'
"I turned to find the bench, when Father's friend came to the rescue. 'I'll take it up,' he said. Father's friend is not so very young, but he is desperately slim.
"'Oh, you can't!' I exclaimed.
"He threw his shoulders back. 'Certainly I can,' he remarked decidedly, and then he told the boy at the desk that we would be back for it in about an hour,—and we started for the library.
"I'm not going to write you one word about that library. It and my vocabulary aren't built on the same lines, and they won't associate at all,—won't even nod in passing.
"It was more than an hour before we got back to the station, and when the boy set that heavy case on the counter, I felt like crawling under it, under the counter, I mean. The man didn't fit the case, any better than my vocabulary fits the library; but he was braver than I am,—he tackled it,—and he changed hands three times before we got to the door! That was doing real well, though, for the waiting-room is almost as wide as the Columbus one is long;—and he only set it down once on the way to the car. I was awfully afraid the conductor wouldn't let us take it on; but he didn't even notice it, and everything went swimmingly. In one place we had to change cars, and I did wish that the thing had two handles, so that I could help get it across the street. The only time we had any trouble was when he'd gotten it about half way across, and it suddenly got heavier than he had thought it was, and he set it down quick, and he hadn't quite stopped going, and his feet and knees got tangled up in it;—but he wasn't cross about it at all. He said it was good for his muscles.
"We had to walk almost three blocks after we got off of the car, and then was when things got strenuous. He set it down every ten steps, so that he could point out buildings and statues to me. Some of the things I couldn't see, because they were around the corner or across the block; but they were somewhere near, and he wanted to tell me about them. And when we weren't stopping, he changed hands so often that I felt as if I were walking with a physical culture person, who was swinging Indian clubs. He really got quite a swing on it after a while, especially when he had put his handkerchief over the handle, so as to get a better grip. I was rather glad when we reached the hotel, though.
"It was all right after I got it to my room and into my clothes-press. It's a perfectly good travelling-case,—when it isn't travelling.
"When Father came, I told him my tale of woe, and it was worth all of my troubles, just to hear him laugh. 'What are you thinking about using that case for, from now on?' he asked.
"'I don't know,' I said. 'It might do for a mantlepiece ornament, if it weren't quite so wide; but I'm afraid it would topple off, unless it was shaved down some.'
"'I'll tell you,' said Father; 'You can cut some little slits in it and use it to carry a cat or dog in. It would be fine for that.'
"'But I haven't any cat or dog,' I objected.
"'Oh, well, we could pick one up cheap,' said Father.
"'But that wouldn't carry the type-writer.'
"'That's so,' said Father, 'I hadn't thought of that. Well then, I "I'll have a couple of wheels put on it, and some straight handles, and you can use it for a perambulator, and wheel it home 'cross country. But really, chicken,' he said, more soberly, 'what are you going to do? I have to leave you again to-morrow.'
"'Don't bother about it,' said I. 'I'd sort of like to work the thing out for myself.'
"'You're game,' he said; 'go ahead.'
The next day I saw him off on the train, and then went to the Washington office of the type-writer company and told a salesman there all about my trouble. He was very nice, and very interested, and explained that all of my trials were due to rules that the railroads had just adopted, and which the Indianapolis manager probably didn't know about.
"'I'll tell you what we'll do,' he said; 'You let us know when you are ready to go, and we'll send up after the machine, and we'll clamp it into the case, and put the case into a wooden box and pack it around with excelsior, and send it by express.'
"'But,' I said, 'what's the advantage of having a case, if you do it so?'
"'Why—well—you get it home that way, you know.'
"But I couldn't see exactly where the advantage lay, in that.
"Then I went to the express office; and the agent said that he would ship it in the case, without boxing,—for exactly double rates.
"I decided to make another effort to check it, and if I couldn't, to take it on the train with me.
"I was going from there to East Aurora, New York, and didn't have to change cars at all; so I hired a man to take it to the station. The baggage man refused to check it. 'If it was in a square trunk, I could check it, Miss,' he said.
"'But what's the difference?' I asked.
"'They wouldn't know what was in it.'
"'But wouldn't it get handled like other trunks then?' I asked, '—all banged around?'
"'Yes'm.'
"I hired a porter to carry it out to the train, and as soon as the Pullman porter came into the car, I gave him fifty cents real quick. It was a parlor car, and he took a lot of pains to set the case back, close to the window, and I draped myself over it, and when the conductor came in, he never guessed that there was anything so ferocious within a thousand miles of him;—and everything was lovely all the way to East Aurora. I thought that I had solved the problem.
"The train pulled in at about nine o'clock at night, and my car stopped something like a block from the baggage room; and of course there weren't any porters around a little place like that. The station was clear across the street from where I was, and I stood there beside the incubus ('incubus' is a perfectly good word,—I looked it up, and it means nightmare, or a sensation of depressing weight on your chest!) until the train pulled out. Then I stood there a while longer; but nobody went by. There was a little cigar store close to the track, and I took my valise over and set it close to the wall of that, and then I went back and took hold of the handle of the nightmare. It fought back; but I wrestled it over to the door of the store, and asked the young man in charge if he would be willing to keep it until I sent for it.
"He said he'd be glad to, and he set it behind the counter, and I started for the Inn. Father had told me just how to go, and, oh, Chet, wasn't it good—good—good, to breathe in that country air, full of the smell of the leaves that were fluttering down all over the board walks, and of the grass, and of the fruit lying under the trees in the dooryards? It was dark; but I knew just what every odor and sound meant, and I could hear the apples thud down onto the grass, when a little breeze blew, and I could scuff through the leaves that rustled all about my ankles. I'd been in the cities so much that I felt as if I were suddenly free again, and I wanted to wave my arms and just squeal with delight. You know I'm never afraid to be out alone at night, and so that didn't bother me a bit, even if the place was strange;—but then, you know, the country never is really strange,—it is home everywhere.
"The boy who carried my valise to my room at the Inn, looked strong,—everybody looks strong down there,—and so I asked him if he would go to the cigar store and get the type-writer. It was about half a mile away, I guess. He said he would; so I put the 'CARE' off of my mind, and went down to the living-room to write to Father, because I wanted the letter to go out early in the morning.
"The boy was gone a dreadfully long time, and when he did come in with the machine, he didn't look very pleased. 'Did you have any trouble with it?' I asked, anxiously.
"'Went after it with my bicycle!' he remarked.
"'Why, how in the world did you manage?' I gasped.
"'I'll never tell you. The thing won't ride, and it won't walk, and the bicycle either shied or kicked at it every time I got 'em within two rods of each other.'
"I followed him up stairs with it, feeling dreadfully guilty;—and then, when I got there, and he had put it on the table and unlocked it for me, and I went to pay him,—he wouldn't take a cent! I felt about two inches high! It's queer, though, isn't it, Chet, that we are in such a habit of paying for everything that any one does for us, that when some person who isn't a particular friend is willing to do a kindness, just to help, it makes us feel small to accept it? It doesn't seem as if it ought to be that way, does it? Before I left there, I got used to having kindnesses done,—just to be kind. It is a mighty pleasant thing to get used to,—and it is contagious, too.
"I had a week of the glorious out-doors there. I never saw such out-doors before;—such crooked brown roads that lead you on and on, because you know that just around the bend is going to be something that you absolutely must see; but you never get tired. And such a wonderful little river, winding and twisting, with the trees meeting overhead, and the vines dropping down and patting your cheeks and tweaking your hair as you row under them. And down below the dam, it is shallow, only a foot deep, perhaps, and running over a perfectly flat rock bottom as smooth as pavement; but it is more than a hundred feet wide; and there are funny boulders, shaped like monstrous turtles, that work themselves out of the high shale banks and roll down into the clear water, and lie there for stepping-stones, or to sit on. And one side of the river is always low, either meadow or woods, coming close to the water; and the other side is always a high bluff, sometimes of shale, and sometimes with pine trees growing all over it;—and sometimes the bluff is on one side and sometimes on the other, but never on both at once. And the pine trees dip their branches into the water,—and there are wintergreens, and butternuts, and wild apples.
"And there is a wonderful glen that looks as if no one but you had ever been there for a thousand years. The sides are straight up, and covered with great trees, and old logs grown over with moss and vines; and in the rocks of the bottom, which the water flows over, are what look like the prints of people's feet, made so long ago that it makes you feel weird and tiny. And when you fit your feet into them, it throws you into the very position in which some one stood, so desperately long ago, when that rock was only clay. And at the upper end of the glen, is a tall cascade, which they say is a hundred and ten feet high, and the water falls into a clear, rocky pool and—
"But there, Chet, this is The Case of the Type-writer, and if I get to talking about outdoor things, you know what will become of everything else!
"There were quite a number of Christian Scientists at the Inn, and there is a church building that the Scientists put up for themselves. It is a wee little one; but on that lovely, shady village street, where everything is quiet and beautiful, it looked just as good to me as some of the great, big, handsome ones that I have seen in cities. I have never seen a city anywhere nearly so beautiful as that little village of twenty-five hundred people;—even our town is clumsy compared with it, and the world doesn't joggle as it turns around, there.
"Father was there for only three days, and then left me to come on to Chicago alone. Uncle Fred is still here; but Aunt Fannie has gone away on a visit, and so he is staying at a hotel on the South Side. Father said for me to get off of the train at the Hyde Park station, and Uncle Fred would meet me and take me to the hotel. The only change for me to make was at Buffalo, and that was all in the same depot.
"I went down to the East Aurora station to get my ticket, in the morning of the day before I was to leave, and asked the agent how early I would have to start my trunk down, so that it would be sure to get onto the early train.
"'That train don't wait to take on baggage here,' he said; 'you'll have to get it down by four o'clock this afternoon, so it can go yesterday.'
"I gasped. 'But—but how can it go yesterday?' I asked.
"'Well, if it goes to-day, then when you go to-morrow morning, it will have gone yesterday, won't it?' looking as if I wearied him.
"I had to admit that it would, and hurried back to the Inn to pack.
"My train went before seven o'clock the next morning, and as I took an ordinary day-coach into Buffalo, which is only seventeen miles, and the baggage-man put my type-writer into the car for me, I had no trouble. You see, I didn't dare to try to check it clear through from East Aurora for fear that it would be held up in Buffalo, and I had only fifteen minutes between trains there. So I decided that, since my early tip to the porter from Washington had worked so well, I would try that way again.
"The trip to Buffalo took only half an hour,—that is, as far as the Buffalo 'yards'; but when we got there, our train stopped to wait for another train to get through doing something, and then it waited for some engines to do things, and then it backed a little way and sat down to think about it.
"I looked at my watch, and then took my valise and carried it to the front of the car and went back and tackled the type-writer; but about six men jumped before I had gotten a fair hold on the handle, and the way it was hustled out onto the platform of the car, must have given it a shock. I told some of them that I had to make the train that was going in six minutes, and they got interested and almost tumbled off the train trying to see what was the matter, and how near in we were; and when the conductor came along, they pretty nearly mobbed him; and then they got out their watches, and put their thumb-nails on the dials, and watched those six minutes sprint by. I never saw people so interested, and so anxious to help, as they are around that part of the country. I believe that the bricks and mortar in cities crowd people so close together, that they don't have room to stretch out helping hands,—and helping thoughts. But there,—why you'd have thought that every one of those men simply had to get that very train;—and several women came too, and tried to shove things along for me. I think they'd all have got out and helped me push the train, if it would have done any good.
"Our engine started up before the six minutes were gone; though it went awfully slow, and things began to look as if I might make the train by the skin of my teeth after all. And when we did pull into the station, before we had quite stopped, the men piled off with the type-writer and me, and a man in a blue uniform called out:—'Train for Chicago on the next track! Down the stairway, please,' and we all looked pleasant and made a wild rush.
"When we came up out of the subway, there stood the train, and I said, 'For Chicago?'
"'That train's gone, Miss,' said the guard; 'but you can get on this and go to Welland and wait for it.'
"'Wait for it?' I said. I began to think that my head was getting wabbly.
"'Yes, Miss, it goes around by the Falls, you know, and gets to Welland half an hour after this. You can use your ticket.'
"That seemed all right, so I climbed on, and two of the men from East Aurora brought in my belongings and wished me good luck, and I was off again. It was a parlor car, and I got the incubus over close to the window and festooned myself around it once more and thought I would be all right for the hour or so between there and Welland.
"By and by the porter came in and looked suspiciously at my drapery.
"'Customs has to examine yo' things, Miss,' he said.
"I unlooped myself and handed him a quarter, and he set the case and my valise beside another chair, where there was a man's suit-case. He didn't ask for my keys, but he had the suit-case open. By and by the customs officer came in and poked over a few things in the suit-case and passed on; and the incubus sat there, as quiet as you please, all the way to Welland, where the porter set it off for me, and I began to wait for my train.
"The station was a brand new one, about eight by ten feet, or something like that, and there were a lot of men in working clothes and tobacco juice standing around the platform talking things over, or just leaning back and thinking about them. I never saw so many men leaning their backs against things for so long a time before in my life. It seemed as if they must think that the side walls of the new building were made to lie on, and they were testing them to see which board was the softest. There was an old lady there, too, and she told me all about every sickness that every member of her family had had since they arrived, and was just starting in on the neighbors, when my train came.
"It stopped with all the mail cars and day coaches, and such things, right beside me, and away off on the horizon was the car that I belonged to. The old lady had kept me so busy that I hadn't thought of a plan for getting aboard,—and I was suddenly up against it! Not a porter was in sight. I grabbed my load of 'CARE' and tried to drag it; but I had only one hand to spare, and it wouldn't budge. I looked around, and there was every one of those weary men leaning up against the wall and watching me.
"I got enthusiastic all of a sudden. 'Please, one of you come and help me with this,' I called;—and not one of them stirred,—they just looked a little interested and curious.
"'I'll pay you, of course,' I said.
"At that, one of them straightened up part way and thought about it, and then came over and picked up the type-writer and sauntered down toward the rear of the train, and I followed. In a minute a porter in a white coat came running toward us and grabbed the case and hurried me to my car; and the man kept along fast enough until I had gotten a quarter out of my purse, and then he dropped back.
"I took out a fifty-cent piece at the same time, thinking that I had a good chance to get on the right side of the porter, early; and when he placed the case in my section, I handed him the money.
"He thanked me, and grinned, and I asked for a paper bag for my hat.
"'Oh, ah ain't de portah, Miss,' he said; 'Ah'm fum de dinin'-cah'—and he melted away, while I fished for another half-dollar to pay the nightmare's expenses. When the real porter came, I handed it to him, and looked pleasant, and he didn't appear to notice the type-writer, and as there wasn't another passenger in the car, I thought that my troubles were over;—but I hadn't counted upon the conscience of the Pullman conductor!
"He came in, he spied it, and he looked shocked and astonished, and said that it couldn't stay. He said that it should have been checked, and I agreed with him, but said that I couldn't seem to find a baggage master of the same opinion.
"He said it would cost him a fifteen-day layoff if an inspector should see it.
"I mentioned the fact that there weren't any inspectors on the car just then, nor any one else, and that, consequently, it wasn't crowding any one so as to notice.
"He said that didn't make any difference,—that he had been laid off fifteen days once before on a smaller grip than that; and he couldn't afford it. He seemed to have a morbid suspicion that there was an inspector peering in at one of the ventilators, or somewhere.
"I told him if he'd put it up on the seat, I'd sit on it, if that would help any; but it didn't seem to, and he went away mourning, and returned to mourn, and sat down behind me and mourned, and in front of me and mourned. He couldn't sit down beside me or opposite me, because there wasn't any room for his feet. I didn't dare to try to tip him; for I was afraid that conductors were above that sort of thing, and I didn't want to make him feel any worse; so I sat and stared at the 'Fragile, WITH CARE,' and felt as if his wife and sixteen children were going to starve to death on my account; and every time the train stopped, I held my breath for fear that an inspector would come in and say, 'Off with his fifteen days!'—and I could fairly hear those hungry children weep.
"Well, neither the inspector nor any one else came into the car, and at last we got to Hyde Park, at ten o'clock at night. The train stopped with my car away down in Indiana somewhere;—at least it wasn't within a block of the entrance of the Hyde Park station, and was out among the tracks, more than a hundred feet from the nearest end of the platform. No one else got off and there wasn't a light out there in the wilderness. The porter set the case down beside me, and picked up his foot-stool and swung aboard the train, and it drew away and left me there in the darkness.
"Clear down on the platform, where the lights were, I could see Uncle Fred, watching each car as it went by, and wondering why I hadn't come, as per my telegram; but he couldn't see me, away off there in the dark; and so, when the train had rumbled over the viaduct, he started for the entrance.
"I felt like sitting down on 'Jonah' and weeping. I didn't though. I made sure that the incubus was beside the track, instead of between the rails, and then I made a wild run after Uncle Fred's retreating figure. He had gotten down the steps, and was just going through the turnstile, when I caught him, and you never saw any one look so astonished in your life.
"'Where on earth did you drop from?' he asked, his eyes popping away out.
"'Oh, I just walked in from Indiana,' I said. 'Come, you have to go back after my type-writer.'
"'Where is it?' he asked.
"'Just about on the State-line, I guess,'—and he followed me back.
"When we got somewhere near where it ought to be, he lit a pocket fuse, so as to find it; and when at last it struck his eye, his face lighted up with appreciation.
"'Well, look at the fine type-writer case!' he cried; 'Now you are sensible!'"